| B- Directed by Craig Zobel Starring Ann Dowd, Dreama Walker, and Scott Healy Review by Jon Kissel |  |
Compliance would be offensive and exploitative if it weren't based on a true story. The premise is so outlandish that it risks outright viewer rejection, except that the event happened essentially as depicted. Craig Zobel's stranger-than-fiction film is one of the more discomfiting cinematic experiences I've endured. It produces a visceral reaction, a hot sensation on the back of one's neck like some kind of mixture of rage at the events onscreen and a shared humiliation for the victim. If one of the goals of art is to engender a reaction in the consumer, Zobel succeeds tremendously, even if that reaction is not one that's eager to be recreated.
Like the 2015 film Experimenter, a biopic of Stanley Milgram and his famous obedience experiments, Compliance takes an authoritarian premise and invites the viewer to ask how they might've reacted. The 'right' response seems so self-evident, but that people actually reacted as shown onscreen creates doubt. If the characters could so thoroughly fail a moral test, is it possible I'm overestimating my own capabilities? The villain of Compliance may well have studied Milgram's experiments, as he understands the blinding power of authority. Posing as a police detective, he calls fast food restaurants until he finds the right circumstances for his sick games. At this point, he accuses a worker of a crime and sees how far he can push all involved.
One afternoon, the unnamed villain (Pay Healy) calls the right restaurant. Stressed manager Sandra (Ann Dowd) is dealing with multiple crises in her ChickWich franchise, ranging from a loss of inventory to spoilage, the rumored visit of a corporate inspector, and the casual disrespect she puts up with from her teenage staff. Once the villain calls her, she puts all this on the back-burner when her employee Becky (Dreama Walker) is accused of theft. The villain is able to get exactly enough information out of Sandra to make it sound like he's legit, and a bewildered Becky is sequestered in Sandra's office. To find the stolen property, the villain insists on a strip search. As his requests escalate, there's always a perfunctory dissent from Sandra or Becky, but he is always able to talk them down with cajoling and threats, and the horror show continues.
The events of Compliance are so heinous and shocking that this film could only be made if it was based on a true story. It is so unbelievable, that if a writer made it all up, it would insult the audience's intelligence. Horrifyingly, upon post-film research, the true-crime aspect is accurate to a disturbing degree, leaving the viewer to wrack their brain and contemplate how this could've happened. Zobel makes a concerted effort to answer that question without making Sandra look like an unrecognizable moron and Becky like an agency-less drone. As the central contact with the villain, Sandra is duped by several methods of coercion, including sympathy for her hard work and professional sounding regulations. Conversely, the villain snows Becky with outright threats and cold reading. These are unrecognizable behaviors on the part of many characters, but the attempt to bridge the gap into recognizability mostly works, especially for a person familiar with how psychics and other con men operate. Compliance stays shocking but Zobel succeeded in keeping my ire away from Sandra and Becky. As Becky, Walker gradually adopts the heartbreaking I'm-not-there mien of the traumatized, while as Sandra, Dowd is too interesting to be repulsive, credulous and enabling as she may be.
In Experimenter, Milgram describes the value of his experiments while he's being questioned about the questionable ethics of their methods. If people can be made aware of their blind spots when it comes to obedience and authority, it might keep them from being manipulated by those eager to take advantage of those weaknesses. The characters in Compliance, and the events that it's based on, are exactly what Milgram's referring to. Some self-knowledge might've kept them from victimizing a teenage girl. Compliance is a harrowing film that somehow keeps escalating, well-made and valuable in its lessons about skepticism but deep into unpleasant territory for someone who's already learned those lessons. The Wikipedia page of the actual event is disturbing enough without seeing it recreated. B-
One afternoon, the unnamed villain (Pay Healy) calls the right restaurant. Stressed manager Sandra (Ann Dowd) is dealing with multiple crises in her ChickWich franchise, ranging from a loss of inventory to spoilage, the rumored visit of a corporate inspector, and the casual disrespect she puts up with from her teenage staff. Once the villain calls her, she puts all this on the back-burner when her employee Becky (Dreama Walker) is accused of theft. The villain is able to get exactly enough information out of Sandra to make it sound like he's legit, and a bewildered Becky is sequestered in Sandra's office. To find the stolen property, the villain insists on a strip search. As his requests escalate, there's always a perfunctory dissent from Sandra or Becky, but he is always able to talk them down with cajoling and threats, and the horror show continues.
The events of Compliance are so heinous and shocking that this film could only be made if it was based on a true story. It is so unbelievable, that if a writer made it all up, it would insult the audience's intelligence. Horrifyingly, upon post-film research, the true-crime aspect is accurate to a disturbing degree, leaving the viewer to wrack their brain and contemplate how this could've happened. Zobel makes a concerted effort to answer that question without making Sandra look like an unrecognizable moron and Becky like an agency-less drone. As the central contact with the villain, Sandra is duped by several methods of coercion, including sympathy for her hard work and professional sounding regulations. Conversely, the villain snows Becky with outright threats and cold reading. These are unrecognizable behaviors on the part of many characters, but the attempt to bridge the gap into recognizability mostly works, especially for a person familiar with how psychics and other con men operate. Compliance stays shocking but Zobel succeeded in keeping my ire away from Sandra and Becky. As Becky, Walker gradually adopts the heartbreaking I'm-not-there mien of the traumatized, while as Sandra, Dowd is too interesting to be repulsive, credulous and enabling as she may be.
In Experimenter, Milgram describes the value of his experiments while he's being questioned about the questionable ethics of their methods. If people can be made aware of their blind spots when it comes to obedience and authority, it might keep them from being manipulated by those eager to take advantage of those weaknesses. The characters in Compliance, and the events that it's based on, are exactly what Milgram's referring to. Some self-knowledge might've kept them from victimizing a teenage girl. Compliance is a harrowing film that somehow keeps escalating, well-made and valuable in its lessons about skepticism but deep into unpleasant territory for someone who's already learned those lessons. The Wikipedia page of the actual event is disturbing enough without seeing it recreated. B-
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